I hadn't planned to do a second dive. I was chatting to a couple of divers (Mark and Dave) who had dived The Steps while I was coming from The Leap and they were interested in seeing the seahorses so I decided to show them.

We jumped in at The Steps and descended to the sand line. We turned right through the kelp and swam over the sand. As we swam we came across the weedy seadragon with the growth on its snout (PT2014041802) and then the male with no appendages on his head (PT2015010102) who has eggs.

We continued along the sand line until the "Big John"/"Little Andrew" rock and I pointed out "Di" to Mark and Dave. She was still hiding in the sponge.

We headed towards "Rosie" and "Noel" and I pointed out the Miamira magnifica along the way. "Rosie" and "Noel" were still in the pink sea tulip and were now side-by-side.

We swam past the basket star and up to the pygmy pipehorses. I pointed both out to Mark and Dave and they then left me to photograph them while they finished their dive. I had another look for the other pygmy pipehorse but couldn't see it. The surge wasn't helping.

I swam around the area looking for more pygmies but didn't find any. I did spot a weedy seadragon (PT2015072501) in the same hole where Sheree found the white pygmy pipehorses in March 2014. The weedy was feeding on mysids. I also found a small green moray.

I headed back via the basket star, then "Rosie" and "Noel", the M. magnifica nudibranch and "Di". I swam to the boulders for my safety stop and exited at The Steps.

Seas

Slight surge

Visibility

5 metres

Duration

90 minutes

Maximum depth

14.5 m

Average depth

11.6 m

Water temperature

15.5°C

Dive Profile from Citizen Hyper Aqualand

Tides at Botany Bay AEST

Note that tides at dive site may vary from above location.

High

4:57am

1.25m

Low

10:39am

0.55m

High

5:17pm

1.67m

Camera gear

Camera

Nikon D7000

Lens

Nikon AF Micro-Nikkor 60mm f/2.8D

Housing

Ikelite 6801.70

Lens port

Ikelite Flat Port 5502.41

Strobe

2 x Ikelite SubStrobe DS161

Photographs

Depth information, where present, indicates the depth of the camera when the photograph was taken and can be used to approximate the depth of the subject.